The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

Matt Ridley‘s recent article in The Wall Street Journal, “A Truce in the War Over Smarts and Genes,” is about the heritability of intelligence. The article, which is behind WSJ’s paywall, is available on Ridley’s personal website, The Rational Optimist, under the title “Goldilocks Heritability.” Here are some relevant bits:

Hardly any subject in science has been so politically fraught as the heritability of intelligence. For more than a century, since Francis Galton first started speculating about the similarities of twins, nature-nurture was a war with a stalemated front and intelligence was its Verdun—the most hotly contested and costly battle.

So would it not be rather wonderful if a scientific discovery came along that called a truce and calmed all the fury? I think this is about to happen. Call it the Goldilocks theory of intelligence: not too genetic, not too environmental—and proving that intelligence is impossible to meddle with, genetically.

The immediate cause of this optimism is a recent paper in Molecular Psychiatry, which confirms that genes account for about half of the difference in IQ between any two people in a modern society….

So far, so good. But Ridley goes off the rails with this:

…Some of the more extreme “nurturists,” especially those who dominated the debate in the 1960s to 1980s, might not welcome the new confirmation of the nearly 50% role of genes in determining IQ differences, even though it has been blindingly clear for a long time now.

They should, though. A world in which intelligence is 100% genetic would be horribly unfair….

What does “fairness” have to do with it? Is there a master gene-dispenser in the sky to whom one can complain about not having received a “fair share” of smart genes? I think not.

There would be nothing “unfair” about a world in which intelligence is 100 percent genetic. That’s just the way it would be, and nothing could — or should — be done about it.

But that wouldn’t stop leftists from trying to do something about it. As I say here,

[t]he search for cosmic justice — the rectification of all that is “unfair” in the world — is relentless, knows no bounds, and is built upon the resentment and punishment of success.

I’m afraid that you’ve missed the point of my post, which may be my fault for not making it more clearly. The point is that when it comes to natural phenomena (of which genetic inheritance is one), there is no such thing as a “fair” or “unfair” outcome. It is what it is, as they say. Unless you believe that there is someone actively in charge of determining the outcomes of natural events — and that you are in a position to judge that someone’s actions.

Even if intelligence were 100-percent heritable, it would vary considerably from person to person because of selection effects. In fact, the variation might be more extreme than it is now, as pairings of highly intelligent persons would produce only highly intelligent offspring, while pairing of low-intelligence persons would produce only low-intelligence offspring. Would you consider that “fair”? It would be neither “fair” nor “unfair,” of course, but leftists would use it as an excuse to forbid couplings of the kind I mentioned, to dictate state-enforced gene therapy, and so on — all in the interest of “fairness.”

Anyway, reaching one’s “full genetic potential” does not depend on the heritability of intelligence. A person can reach his “full genetic potential” regardless of his innate (genetic) intelligence. If you mean that everyone should have the same genetic potential, then you’re putting yourself in the position of judging nature or the mysterious actor who hands out genes.

In any event, reaching one’s “full genetic potential” is a matter of making the most of the abilities with which one is born. So, if “A” is born with more intelligence than “B” — and if “A” and “B” both reach their full genetic potential, that is, make the most of their respective levels of intelligence — it is likely that (other things being the same) “A” will become wealthier than “B.” That is a “fair” outcome because “A” and “B” are both able to realize their genetic potential. A leftist would call it an “unfair” outcome because “A” becomes richer than “B”; a leftist, in other words, judges outcomes that flow from natural differences as if he were the possessor of a universal “fairness” scale.

I don’t disagree with you argument. My comment was more directed at Ridley who does not seem to understand what heritability means. If a society is very unequal — with many starving and not having access to even basic schooling while others have everything — heritability will be low. In contrast, if a society is sufficiently equal so that everybody’s basic needs get satisfied, heritability will be high. Contra Ridley, I don’t think the latter sort of society is “horribly unfair”, quite the contrary. With 100 percent heritability, there would still be large differences in intelligence (and social outcomes that are influenced by intelligence such as education and income), but the differences would not be due to unequal environments but innate genetic factors.

Incidentally, I think the heritability of IQ in contemporary Western societies is closer to 100 percent than 50 percent. The study Ridley refers to sets a lower bound for the additive heritability of IQ; the broad-sense heritability is higher, perhaps 80 percent in adults.

Comments & Correspondence

Now that this blog is in hiatus, I have closed comments on all posts. If you wish to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.